A significant issue that retailers face is customers leaving behind paid merchandise at the checkout counter. This typically happens when a consumer doesn't see one of his bags of goods and leaves without it or when the cashier forgets to bag an item that is then left behind when the shopper takes all of his bagged merchandise. Most often, the customer realizes that he is missing the paid merchandise well after he has left the store, so he then has to travel back to the store and explain to customer service how some of his paid merchandise was left behind. In order for the store to confirm the customer's story, the store's security department has to spend the time to tediously look for the video footage of the event (appropriate camera, correct day, time, etc) and then carefully review it to make sure that the merchandise was indeed paid for but accidentally left at the store. This time-consuming step verifies that the customer has a legitimate story and is not attempting to cheat the retailer by conjuring up a lie in order to steal merchandise. The store then needs to figure out what happened to the missing merchandise. Did the next customer in line take it? Was the merchandise put back on the shelf? Was it set aside at customer service? Did the cashier take the product for himself? Did the merchandise get lost? There are many possibilities, making it even more difficult to resolve the matter. As a result, many times the customer is not reunited with his merchandise. The above scenarios present lengthy and error prone processes that are difficult to confirm and resolve and are therefore non-productive for the store's employees and make the experience poor for the customer.
One solution to these problems is to provide manual inspection, such as having someone always monitoring the store checkout counter, which wastes productivity. Another solution is electronic tracking of items with users. At present, there are many techniques for the electronic monitoring of the movement of people and stock, which can be used in many different scenarios in a retail environment. These monitoring techniques include the scanning or reading of any one of a barcode printed on an item, an Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) tag affixed to the item, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag embedded in the item, and the like. Even with these techniques to track items, there is still a problem for tracking users where purchased items still can be separated from their buyers and left behind at a checkout counter unintentionally.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved technique to alleviate the aforementioned issues.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.